Which football team will have a better record next season: Arkansas or Wisconsin?

Madison - Montee Ball's season of resurgence continued Thursday night.

The victim of a brutal assault less than a week before the opening of preseason camp in August, Wisconsin's senior tailback struggled early in the season and eventually fell out of the race for the Heisman Trophy.

On Thursday, five days after being named the MVP of the Big Ten Conference title game, Ball won the 2012 Doak Walker Award, given annually to the top running back in the nation.

"I was telling everybody at the beginning of the show I was going to keep my nerves calm, acting cool and all that stuff," Ball, a finalist for the award last year, said by phone Thursday night from Lake Buena Vista, Fla. "But I knew the nerves would come.

"Once they said now here are the Doak Walker Award finalists, my heart jumped out of my chest.

"Right now all I can say is that I'm blessed. I feel great."

Ball joins Ron Dayne (1999) as the only UW players to win the award. Ball enters the Rose Bowl with 1,730 rushing yards, an average of 5.2 yards per carry and 21 touchdowns.

Ball said in the seconds before he heard his named called out Thursday, he did exactly what he did a year ago.

"All you can do is hope," he said. "Last year I was doing the same thing. . . .

"I thank my teammates for blocking for me and the coaches for getting me in this position. I'm very blessed and honored to share this with everyone."

The road has not been smooth.

UW struggled early in the season and Ball, who missed two weeks of camp because of injuries suffered in the assault, found little room to run.

But the line play improved after then-coach Bret Bielema fired offensive line coach Mike Markuson after Week 2 and promoted graduate assistant Bart Miller.

Since being held to 46 yards on 22 carries in a loss to Michigan State in Game 9, Ball has rushed 114 times for 702 yards (6.2-yard average), with eight touchdowns, in UW's last four games.

Ball rushed 21 times for 202 yards and three touchdowns in the victory over Nebraska in the Big Ten title game to help UW, which lost five games by a combined 19 points, secure its third consecutive Rose Bowl berth.

"It has been tough, very painful and scary for me off the field this year," Ball said. "And I guess in a way scary for us, losing those games and struggling at the beginning of the season and really not knowing where we'd end up.

"But to look at it now it was kind of a blessing in disguise because I believe it taught us that you're always going to face adversity and the definition of a man is how you overcome it.

"I believe everyone believed and we all kept pushing through. All I can say is I'm very blessed to be part of the teammates I've been around."